


until i feel human

by thomasine



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Fem!Thomas, Mental Instability, Multi, Rape Recovery, Rule 63, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasine/pseuds/thomasine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She comes to them broken-down, a marionette with snapped strings, and there is a haunted look in her eyes that Kaito knows too well, because he's seen it in the mirror more times than he can count. The difference is that she's run from the cause of hers to the cause of his; that she takes solace in the one who--</p>
<p>Well. It doesn't matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	until i feel human

She comes to them broken-down, a marionette with snapped strings, and there is a haunted look in her eyes that Kaito knows too well, because he's seen it in the mirror more times than he can count. The difference is that she's run from the cause of hers to the cause of his; that she takes solace in the one who--

Well. It doesn't matter.

She burns bright and sharp but  _broken_ , and Kaito watches her and wonders what pushed her to this depth. He remembers dueling against her and her brother, remembers the way she'd flicked seamlessly between delighting in Haruto's pain and batting her eyelashes at Kaito, something wild and dangerous and all the more alluring for it; the smooth flat of a blade in tender strokes and the biting kiss of the edge scoring bloody lines in the skin. He wonders how she'd gotten from that to this, from the perfectly poised knife to shards of broken glass doused in lighter fluid and set ablaze.

He asks once, when she's been there six months or so, and she laughs. Sharp-edged and bloody and without any sign of stopping; the kind of noise that sinks into his head and  _lodges_  there, so that by the time he realises the laughter has turned to noisy sobs she must have been crying for a minute or more. The kind of noise that summons  _him_  from god-knows-where to pick her up and murmur nonsense in her ear until she falls still against him, her eyes staring at nothing and only the rapid, fluttering little wounded-animal movements of her breathing showing that she's even still alive.

_He_  makes Kaito sit by, later, makes him watch the way that she's dragged out of herself with touches of fingers and mouth and more besides. The way that she unfolds beneath the touches and comes back to them in shuddering breaths and sobs, and perhaps Kaito would think that meant their emptiness were caused by different things except that he remembers coming back to the world under those same hands as if they weren't the  _reason_  for him hiding inside of himself.

( _but they weren't_ , says that treacherous little voice inside him, and he hates that it's right; that for all that he's been hollowed out and tainted and used by  _him_ , the things that have made him turn towards the source of his pain for comfort have always been other, always been apart from  _him_ )

Kaito's called out when the two are done, and he follows behind Heartland, eyes flicking over the way that there's not a thread out of place on the suit even after-- after  _that_.

"It  _was_  different for the two of you," he says, almost conversationally. "It was her mind, rather than her body."

And Kaito could say a million things to that. He could snap and snarl at the way Heartland talks of the things he's done to Kaito with as much care as he might talk of the weather, for one. And he  _should_. But it's pointless, and he is  _tired_ , and  _he_  knows it. Heartland knows that Kaito is collared, muzzled; that he might snap and snarl but in the end he can do the man no harm. And Kaito is, right now, too exhausted for petty power-plays in which he's never had the power and never  _will_.

He only grunts his acknowledgement and pushes past Heartland to return to the room they came from, ignoring the smirk he can practically  _feel_  aimed at the back of his head. Only ignores the reek of sex in the room to slip into the bed beside her and give over the the bone-deep exhaustion that's taken him because in some way - no matter that whoever took her apparently took her in mind rather than body, that Heartland is her comfort rather than the  _cause_  for her, that she is or was or will someday again be an enemy - he's no longer  _alone_  in this.

(and needing others is a weakness he can't afford and certainly can't  _show_ , but Heartland has seen his weakness and  _been_  his weakness and Thomas - Thomas, Thomas, because they'd called her IV when she'd first arrived and she'd screamed and sobbed until she couldn't move for her exhaustion - knows the pattern of webbed fractures across his mind and soul because they mirror each other, a pair of broken mirrors)

(and Heartland might be the devil but he will protect his own and that's what they  _are_ , and he--)

(he feels safe curled into her like this, if only for tonight)


End file.
